I haven’t talked about the choice of poplar T&G for the backs of these frames, so let’s revisit the past just a bit. The main carcase of the “Not Wall Hung” has 1/2” T&G poplar for backer boards, and I have more of it left. Where did it come from? I honestly have no idea at this point, but it’s one of those caches of material that I saw and couldn’t pass up at the time, then kept on hand for (possible) future use. I originally thought of using some 1/4” bead board, but once it was planed smooth of some residual glue material there wasn’t much material left to hold the weight of fully loaded tool panels. So, poplar wins. And consistency counts for something, right?

Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the frames laid over the original-concept pine as well as poplar backer boards; I did this to rough out the width and lengths required.

I could place these backers into simple rabbets, but that seems too easy. That, and I’m also concerned about structural resilience; I don’t want to worry about these things holding together once in place. So I decided to create floating panels via table saw and the Venerable #78 Fillister. First the ‘gauge’ that would be used to verify the dado cuts to be made in the frames:

I cut the frames at the table saw (carefully!), then did some fit checks; note there’s chisel work needed to reach the ends of each dado in the frames.

Time for longer panel cuts.

It took a while, but I finally reached Nirvana with these tool panels. Had to rip the top cross pieces (the poplar will be screwed to those at final assembly):

The two frames may look identical, but they’re actually not. The Cherry L frame is narrower by about an inch, to allow clean access to the flush bolt that secures the left door. The Cherry R frame, although wider than the left, also has a bit of hardware to compete with: the cabinet’s lock is in the way. I decided to max out width (and ensure mounting screws could reach door frame material) by creating a mortise of sorts on the backside of the frame assembly.

The result of all this effort is a pair of ‘blank slate’ tool frames, ready for caddies!

Nothing permanently assembled yet. Now to work on tool layouts, so there’s more to come! To see more shop stuff I’m working on, you’re invited to visit my blog. Thanks for looking.

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --

After experimenting with a number of layouts, what I want to do with one door in particular will take a bunch of work. And posting updates while the work is going on will kill the fun of presentation IF I’m able to pull it off at all. So unless I come up with another plan to share glimpses, time to wait for a reveal of sorts.

I do have both CHERRYL and CHERRYR arrangements worked out though, that’s the good news.

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --